The Department of Health and Human Services is facing spending as well as staffing cuts.
Alex Brandon/AP
Alex Brandon/AP
The Trump administration is requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to cut spending on contracts by 35%, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed to NPR.
The cuts to spending on contracts applies across all divisions of HHS – which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies.
This comes on the heels of a nearly 25% staff reduction at HHS.
“The 35% reduction in HHS contracts is a strategic initiative across all divisions of HHS, with the goal of cutting unnecessary spending, saving taxpayer dollars, and streamlining operations,” Nixon wrote in a statement.
“Every agency within HHS is committed to reducing contract expenditures by this target. These cuts are designed to ensure that every dollar is used more efficiently while continuing to focus on our core mission of improving public health and services,” he added.
Spending on contracts can include mundane things like cleaning services or computer support, or specialized equipment for medical research such as freezer storage for bio-specimens or work with outside laboratories for tests, said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen. The contracts often cover functions that are specialized or not large enough to require full-time staff.
With health agencies reeling from layoffs, these spending cuts will further weaken public health in this country, said Steinbrook, via e-mail. He called the cuts “arbitrary and senseless.”
“Amid the disorganized mass layoffs of HHS staff and the reorganization of the agency, the rushed cuts are more likely to cause problems than to accomplish anything constructive,” he added.
“This is at best getting water from a stone,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, via e-mail. “They seem to be on a quest to totally destroy the infrastructure of the nation’s public health system. It’s amazing that they are looking to cut the parts of our health system that give the best value for prevention and wellness.”
HHS fired thousands of staffers this week, acting on its plan to dismiss 10,000 people, on top of around 10,000 people already leaving the agencies under the Trump administration’s Fork in the Road offer and early retirement.
The agency’s plan is to cut 3,500 full-time employees at the FDA, 2,400 at the CDC, 1,200 at the NIH, as well as staff in other divisions.
At CDC, numerous teams suffered losses this week, according to multiple employees who spoke to NPR and didn’t want to use their names for fear of retribution. Nearly all of the CDC’s human resources department was fired, leaving employees with no one to speak to about the terms of their severance; the Division of HIV Prevention unit lost about half its staff, or 180 people; and nearly all of CDC’s involvement with tobacco and smoking cessation, with its staff of about 150 people, was shut down and all its associated contracts with vendors and contractors were canceled.
All 300 employees at the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice were terminated — that team supported local public health efforts around the country, responding to anything from hurricanes and earthquakes to carrying out food safety inspections or lead poisonings in water systems.
CDC employees say amid the chaos of the layoffs, colleagues were trying to figure which divisions or branches still remained at the CDC, sharing lists on white boards and online. Even managers were told nothing in advance.
At FDA, the entire team that handles communications for the agency lost their jobs, according to staffers who were among those fired. And more than 800 people were fired at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, according to an official who was laid off and fears retribution for sharing information.
Speaking of the staffing cuts, Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who served as President Biden’s COVID-19 Response Coordinator, told NPR that it’s uncertain that these agencies will be able to continue tracking disease outbreaks, developing new treatments and other work critical for protecting Americans’ health.
“We don’t know what the implications of all of this will be. I’m worried that what we’re going to see is more people getting sick, more disease outbreaks and infrastructure that is going to be less and less capable of responding to those threats.”
Last week, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that the layoffs were intended to reduce “bureaucratic sprawl.” “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” he said.
Have information you want to share about the layoffs and restructuring across federal health agencies? Reach out to these authors via encrypted communications: Selena Simmons-Duffin @selena.02, Sydney Lupkin @sydneylupkin.36, and Rob Stein @robstein.22.
